Chance to save Russian Mars explorer ship

Russia's Interfax news agency said today there is little chance to save Russia's rare Mars detective ship, trapped in Earth orbit, after it was diverted to the Red planet a few minutes after it was launched on November 9 last.

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The Phobos-Grunt control system was broken last night, even scientists could not get data from the ship. Phobos-Grunt was launched earlier this week, in the mission Moscow hopes will be a return to the spectacular space to explore extraterrestrial planets.

'Last night, there were many attempts to get information from the spacecraft. All have zero results , 'Interfax quoted a source from the Russian space agency as saying.

'The ability to save a ship is very, very small,' the source added.

However, the effort to communicate with the ship continues today, using the facilities operated by NASA and the European Space Agency on Earth.

The Russian space agency said that the students had only a few days to re-program the spacecraft, to help the ship go to Mars. if this is not possible, it risks falling back to earth.